Home Affairs: More than 300k IDs still to be collected on Election Day

All South Africans that are hoping to cast their ballot in the Local Government Elections on Monday, 1 November, will need to present a valid Identity Document. To this end, the Department of Home Affairs said its offices across the country would be open for as long as the polls are.

HOME AFFAIRS OPERATING THROUGHOUT ELECTION DAY

More than 23 000 polling stations opened at 7:00 on Monday morning and will be open to voters until 21:00. The nation’s Home Affairs offices will mirror these times.

Tommy Makhode, the Director-General of the Department, said the offices will facilitate the collection of smart cards, or temporary identity documents, which are a must-have for voters.

Makhode said approximately 30 000 IDs were collected over the Special Voting weekend but a significant number of ID documents are still in the department’s possession.

“Just before the voter weekend registration, for the 18th and 19th of October, they were sitting at around 400 000 and during that particular registration weekend, there were around 30 000 that were collected,” said the Director-General.

“Since then, we have been opening our offices operating extended hours and this weekend we have another 30 000 IDs collected, so we’re sitting at around 330 000 that’s not collected.”